Report: Monaco eyes left-field Mbappe replacement in Stoke's Julien Ngoy

Monaco is drawing up a list of players to remedy the potential sale of teenage sensation Kylian Mbappe, and it may go shopping in one of the more unlikely corners of England.

Stoke City's 19-year-old forward, Julien Ngoy, has been identified as a possible replacement for Mbappe despite only tallying around 40 minutes of league football, sources told ESPN FC's Peter O'Rourke. He's also 11 months older than Monaco's breakout star, and has never scored or assisted in professional football.

Mbappe, meanwhile, has the world at his feet following an explosive 2016-17 term. Real Madrid, Arsenal, Liverpool, and others are all believed to be pursuing the precocious Frenchman for a fee which could trouble the world-record €105 million that Manchester United paid for Paul Pogba last summer.

What Monaco hopes is to snag some untapped talent. When Stoke signed Ngoy as a 15-year-old in 2013, it beat competition from Manchester United and Real Madrid to his signature. He was nominated for the Premier League 2 Player of the Season award in the recently concluded term, and is expected to please Potters fans by seriously troubling Mark Hughes' lineup in the 2017-18 campaign.

His exploits at youth level and for Belgium's under-21 side have attracted glances from West Ham United and RB Leipzig too.

With his speed and impressive technique, Ngoy does bare raw similarities to Mbappe, and would continue Monaco's trend of developing young players. So far this summer, the Ligue 1 champion has added 20-year-old Youri Tielemans, Soualiho Meite (23), Jordi Mboula (18), and Jordy Gaspar (20).